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2012 Book Review #66: 1421
Title: 1421: The Year that China Discovered America
Author: Gavin Menzies
Genre: Pop history
Thingummies: 4, assuming it's moderately true
Synopsis: A retired submarine commander makes the controversial assertion that Ming Dynasty treasure ships explored most of the world decades before the Portuguese began their historic voyages.
Thoughts: This is a completely enthralling book dedicated to a really ballsy thesis--that the treasure fleets of the Ming Dynasty charted most of the world, including North and South America as well as Siberia and Antarctica, in 1421. According to Menzies, European explorers including Columbus, Magellan, and Cook were working off of already existing charts that had been essentially stolen from the Chinese when they made their own voyages of exploration.
There is an overwhelming amount of evidence presented--everything from ancient maps to European ship logs to shipwrecks to lingual analysis to plant migrations to DNA. Some of the declarations are fairly easy to believe, such as the notion that the Chinese were well aware of the location of Australia. Others seem awfully far-fetched, like the declaration that Chinese sailors built the Bimini Road to repair reef-savaged junks.
Taken as a whole and in isolation, this is an incredibly compelling and fascinating argument. Menzies claims the support of an armada of Chinese scholars--this isn't merely one guy out on a mission of his own. And he has plausible-sounding explanations for most possible objections.
Is it true? I'll admit I have no idea. A part of me wants it to be--it's just such a cool idea. But I'll freely admit I don't have nearly the background required to evaluate this. There are dozens of websites that seem devoted to proving him wrong--although there are also dozens of websites devoted to proving the moon landing wrong, too, so that doesn't necessarily mean much. I'd be very much interested in reading a rebuttal by a group of qualified historians. But again, my own lack of knowledge hampers me here--I don't actually know who is considered a respected authority, who is a crank, and who is just inflexible and has an axe to grind. It's certain that there's a lot of "established" history that we're aware is not actually true. But at the same time, this just seems too good to be true. And there's definitely a bunch of places where I think he's making unjustified leaps of logic.
But it certainly is interesting.
Author: Gavin Menzies
Genre: Pop history
Thingummies: 4, assuming it's moderately true
Synopsis: A retired submarine commander makes the controversial assertion that Ming Dynasty treasure ships explored most of the world decades before the Portuguese began their historic voyages.
Thoughts: This is a completely enthralling book dedicated to a really ballsy thesis--that the treasure fleets of the Ming Dynasty charted most of the world, including North and South America as well as Siberia and Antarctica, in 1421. According to Menzies, European explorers including Columbus, Magellan, and Cook were working off of already existing charts that had been essentially stolen from the Chinese when they made their own voyages of exploration.
There is an overwhelming amount of evidence presented--everything from ancient maps to European ship logs to shipwrecks to lingual analysis to plant migrations to DNA. Some of the declarations are fairly easy to believe, such as the notion that the Chinese were well aware of the location of Australia. Others seem awfully far-fetched, like the declaration that Chinese sailors built the Bimini Road to repair reef-savaged junks.
Taken as a whole and in isolation, this is an incredibly compelling and fascinating argument. Menzies claims the support of an armada of Chinese scholars--this isn't merely one guy out on a mission of his own. And he has plausible-sounding explanations for most possible objections.
Is it true? I'll admit I have no idea. A part of me wants it to be--it's just such a cool idea. But I'll freely admit I don't have nearly the background required to evaluate this. There are dozens of websites that seem devoted to proving him wrong--although there are also dozens of websites devoted to proving the moon landing wrong, too, so that doesn't necessarily mean much. I'd be very much interested in reading a rebuttal by a group of qualified historians. But again, my own lack of knowledge hampers me here--I don't actually know who is considered a respected authority, who is a crank, and who is just inflexible and has an axe to grind. It's certain that there's a lot of "established" history that we're aware is not actually true. But at the same time, this just seems too good to be true. And there's definitely a bunch of places where I think he's making unjustified leaps of logic.
But it certainly is interesting.
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